It’s been many years since I’ve seen the first of November dawn bright and sunny but this year seems to be taking great satisfaction in bucking the trend each month.
Certainly a great contrast to the previous weekend with storms Austen and Boelo blowing through in quick succession and though the former passed us by, Boelo was more disruptive and brought enough rain to bring all our stock indoors for a few days.
By pure chance, our creep feeder lines up perfectly with the side door on our shed so we had no trouble keeping the ‘boys’ happy for their final few days around here as the April-calved bulls were all sold on Halloween.
While it’s traditionally a holiday full of ghosts, ghouls and all things spooky, the only thing that raised my eyebrows that day was the prices we received for the weanlings we showed.
While I knew the four bulls we had were of excellent quality, we all know there’s a bit of luck involved every time an animal goes in the ring.
Just as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, one interested bidder isn’t enough to ensure a sale, not to mention all the other underlying factors that can affect trade on any given day.
Twins are generally viewed as a nuisance around here as the cow requires extra feeding, but the pair we had this year would change anyone’s mind. The cow got extra feed while in the shed but once she got out to grass we left them to themselves and she did a mighty job rearing them.
It would have been cruel to split them up as they were thick as thieves since the day they were born, so we sold them as a pair.
At 320kg I was hoping they’d go near the €2,000 mark, but we were pleasantly surprised when the hammer fell at €2,220. That cow certainly earned her keep this year.
Altogether the calves averaged 340kg and €6.42/kg which is certainly nothing to complain about, and with roughly €80 of meal eaten per head they left a nice bit behind them this year.
New owners
While I can’t see how they’ll leave much money for the next man, I hope they will do well for their new owners. It’s always nice to chat to buyers beforehand and I know one man I was speaking to before the sale was set on getting the twins.
The cows which were weaned have all settled into their winter routine and so far the bales have been of good quality. For the first time in a while we marked the bales from each field so we’re able to see which field is producing the best quality fodder.
Though there’s never a huge discrepancy between them, a couple of the meadows this year were a bit stemmy so I’m sure the cows will show their disapproval when we get to them.
The other half are lucky enough to remain outdoors for the time being, and we’ll try to keep them out as long as possible, especially the two heifers which are due at the end of this month.
While they’re both scanned to have bull calves, neither of them look overly heavy so hopefully the extra exercise from walking outdoors will have them fit for calving.
